WineMaker's Report 2007

By Mark Holler

12/23/10 Estimating Acidities and Alcohols for Labels. I should really do some final analysis which could be done from bottles but, I am lazy and taste is the ultimate criteria at this ;point anyway. Still its useful to know to establish quantitative targets for future vintages before the full flavor of the wine has developed.

Barrel

Blend

T.A.

Alc. %

Vol.

Q1

50/50 Cab/Merlot

5.87

15.1

60

Q2

100% Merlot

5.65

15.6

60

C4

66/16/16 Carmenere/Cab/Merlot, 85% 2007, 15% 2008 late swap.

5.54

14.2

26

11/14/09 We were fortunate to have Marketta Formeau former winemaker at Chateau Potelle, visit on this day pressing the last of the 2009 vintage. She tasted the Carmenere from 2007 and 2008 and identified that the 2007 Carmenere is somewhat overoaked now and should definitely be bottled immediately. She also did a little blending experiment and showed us that a 15% addition of the 2007 to the 2008 would improve the 08 Carmenere significantly and make it ready for bottling which she recommended to capture the fruit that the 08 still has. We went ahead and made this swap of 15 % of the Carmenere between 07 and 08.

10/4/08 Barrel tasting at 08 crush.

1/2 barrel recoop with 66% Carm/16.6%Merlot/16.6%Cab Unanimous
agreement that this is an excellent wine, best of 07. Very smooth,
unique nose that is pleasant, perfect balance. Relatively low alcohol I
think.

1 barrel 50% Cab/50% Merlot Coming along. Probably
has some V.A. which the Cab had significantly in the tanks - White film.
Had a bitter finish when first put into the barrel but, that is fading. It
will be O.K.

Wine was left on the lies quite a bit longer than usual this year.
Cindy and I finally racked the wine off of the lies on 2/18/08 but back to the
tanks. Flavors
from the yeast hopefully will add some complexity to the wine. Sur Lies is
a common technique for this purpose in white wines. Less so in the
reds. My assessment is that the wines are rather bitter now
especially the Merlot with its high alcohol levels. I
anticipate that we will need to add some more tartaric acid to improve the acid
alcohol balance. M.L. fermentation is probably also complete which
reduces acidity and may have contributed to the imbalance.

Mouth feel is also still out of whack due to lots of CO2 still in the wine.

Post Fermentation Analysis below was performed on 11/28/07 M.H. Racking back to tanks also shown.

Learned at Wine and Grape Symposium that Temperanillo has similar low acidity
to Carmenere and highly variable yield. I suspect there is a genetic link
between these two varietals.

M.L. innoculations were done by Cindy on 10/29/07.

10/28/07 we pressed the wine. Tim and Glista were the key
participants this day.

First monitoring of must
via wireless sensors. See actual mass and temp data there for these
fermentations. Peak fermentation temps were almost 10 degrees F cooler than in
other years because of the cool temp in the cave and no attempt to heat the
ambient as we usually did in the garage in Palo Alto. Peak temp was 74F
instead of 85F in previous years. This was done somewhat on purpose to
back off on total tannins extracted into the wine. The idea being to make
the wine more approachable at an early age.

The
Harvest Gang crushing the Cab and Carmenere. Alan Broad was our champion sole
helper when we crushed the bin and 3/4 of Merlot.

9/16/07 We harvested the Merlot with a Brix of 27.8 and crushed in front
of the main portal of the new cave for the first time.